Hobo-Ramen And Other Goods
by Yaodai
Summary: Lucy accidentally overheard a wrong conversation. Then she started stalking a certain Dragon Slayer, because it looked like a good idea at the moment. It wasn't.
1. Stinky

**Hoboramen And Other Acquired Goods**

 **Chapter 1**  
 **Stinky**

Lucy was following Gajeel Redfox only because she was a good person and was worrying about the kids. Nothing more, nothing else, she wasn't even curious. Nuh-uh!

Well, maybe a little.

It all started like any other bad day. With the Phantasia Festival approaching and with her team either sick - Natsu in his odd daze was even more useless than in a moving train - or just not around the guild, Lucy needed money to pay her rent somehow.

Hence she walked into the building alone, heading straight towards the mission board and carefully avoiding anything that looked like it could turn into a brawl. Rent wasn't her only problem. Pretty much every mission Lucy took, ended up in her clothes being damaged far beyond repair. Her wardrobe was starting to look very thin and very sad. She just couldn't afford to lose another outfit!

Of course, Lucy's life was never easy and as always, fate was against her. She was but a few steps away from the board, when suddenly a chair flew through the air and smashed into pieces on the wall nearby. The rain of chunks of wood and splinters exploded in every direction.

Lucy yelped and jumped away, bumping into Miki. The girl, occupied by a hand to hand fight with someone else just pushed her out of the way with the elbow, using her other hand to block a punch at the same time.

"Get off me!" Miki snarled. Didn't spare a moment to wait for an answer either. Not like there was one to get.

Cursing her high heels, Lucy fought bravely to keep her balance. Finally, she managed to grab onto one of the tables and breathed out in relief.

However, her illusion of safety was crushed as soon as Lucy straightened her backs. With ridiculously loud roar, Elfman jumped down from the upstairs, landing with a thud and the ground shook under Lucy's feet.

Before she even opened mouth to voice her protests, he used his weapon of mass destruction - two canes of deodorant unleashed the perfume inside with a warning hiss.

First, Lucy felt the sticky wetness covering her skin, then she realized that she was standing right in the ground zero of this manifestation of whatever manly mad thing the idiot was currently doing.

Then, the stench came.

It was unholy, it instantly made her eyes water and it definitely could work greatly as an insecticide.

"What the hell?!" Lucy coughed. It was a bad idea, because as soon as she sucked the air in, the nasty perfume got inside too. The taste was even worse than the smell. Not to mention, now Lucy could feel it even if she wasn't breathing at all. It was just so ridiculously strong and bitter to the point she doubted that any amount of toothpaste or alcohol would flush it out of her mouth.

"Is someone paying you for the product placement, or something?!"

"...this is a manly odor?" Elfman answered her question in a somewhat shy manner. So, it seemed that Lucy hit the bulls-eye. Not that it was making anything better.

She still reeked and it was doubtful that even after a very long bath with lots and lots of soap the smell would go away. Not to mention, she had no time for a long soak anyway. Lucy was stuck with reeking like a guy. A guy who was overcompensating for a lot of things and very, very hard.

"Poor dear!" Mira sighed, looking at her with a gentle, understanding side. Somehow the woman always knew when to show up to brighten Lucy's mood. She also had the uncanny ability to show up out of nowhere, like she was hiding in some dark corner, just waiting for her chance to help someone. Or something.

"Does he really needs to do that inside?" Lucy groaned. "The stench is on everything!"

"I have some spare clothes upstairs," Mira smiled knowingly. "This guild is so lively all the time I need to have something just in case... you can borrow my clothes if you feels like it!"

"You're a life-saver!" Lucy exhaled with relief, because yay, no stinky clothes! Then she discovered that exhaling was a bad idea, since she had to inhale some of the air back in and the stench of perfume filled her lungs again.

Without further delay, she jogged up the stairs, coughing and trying to wipe at least a little of the bitterness off her tongue. She wasn't very successful.

The room where Mira was storing her things was small and served pretty much as a wardrobe crossed with a storage for spare sets of cutlery, plates and glasses. The space was pretty clustered, but there were also a little touches that made it perfectly visible that Mira was the one taking care of this place same as the rest of the building; cute curtains in the window and a nicely looking mirror in the sunny corner, not to mention the lack of dust.

Lucy was a little bit afraid that she would end up fashioning a long, long dress, but it seemed that Mirajane was storing many, many clothes from her photo sessions. So, more Lucy-style clothes were to be found.

Lucy picked up lowly cut shorts and a comfortable, loose shirt. The colors more or less went together with her own boots. It probably wasn't the best combination to be found in this pile of wonders, but it didn't feel right to spend too much time on the task. Accidentally offending Mira and her fashion choices definitely wasn't something Lucy wanted to do. Ever.

She still smelled like a guy, but at least now the stench wasn't blinding. She was left hoping that the perfume was one of that kind that kept only for few hours before disappearing.

"Now back to looking for a job..." Lucy murmured. She was pretty sure she saw a pretty cute request for helping at magical school. It wasn't enough to cover her whole rent, but if she mixed that with working at some restaurant, she's going to have more than enough. Maybe even enough for some new clothes!

Thinking about shopping - she decided that she wanted shorts like that, those were pretty damn comfy - she closed the doors behind her and headed back towards the stairs.

Only to stop, hearing a familiar voices just a few feet away, coming from behind a closed doors.

Lucy almost didn't recognize Gajeel in the very first moment. He was usually loud and brash when he decided to open his mouth, challenging everyone in the close proximity and cursing like a thug.

It was so odd to hear him speak quietly, his low voice raspy and rumbling.

"...I've made contact with Ivan already, or rather he made contact with me," Gajeel said. The tone was so serious, Lucy instantly felt hair standing up on the back of her neck.

She stepped into something and now was torn between being too curious for her own good and just plain terrified of the whole situation. Walking away would probably be the best option, but considering how good dragon slayer's hearing was, there was a risk of getting caught and then explaining that she really, truly wasn't listening on the conversation.

On the other hand, she was oh so deadly curious, because this whole thing would shone a bit of light why Gajeel was able to join the Fairy Tail after the things he done to the guild. Though those reasons were somewhat grim.

Anyhow, who the hell was Ivan? Why would Master Makarov be interested in that man?

"He's dead set about pulling one on you," Gajeel continued. "Though I have no idea when exactly he's going to start dropping hints about what he's up to. Right now he's still guarded around me."

"Don't try to pry the information too fast," Makarov warned him in a stern voice. "Ivan is a dangerous man. If he gets even a hint-"

"Relax," Gajeel snorted. "It's not my first time snooping and you know it."

"Yes," Master Makarov sighed. "And I'm going to repeat what I have said already. Keeping track on too many Dark Guilds at once is going to lead to trouble."

Lucy should go. Right now. Back of in hurry and forget that she even heard anything at all. But, curiosity killed a lot of cats and Lucy was no different than another feline in a situation like that. While listening in at the doors answered a lot of her questions, it also lead to trouble. If there was something useful among the things her father taught her, it definitely was about power. Knowledge was power and it was dangerous as fuck if you hadn't enough power to back it up. Lucy definitely had nothing on her that would work well against either Gajeel or a Dark Guild if things went wrong. She was very, very done with being a damsel in distress and getting anyone, even someone like Redfox in danger definitely wasn't something she would be comfortable with either.

"I'm not picking up things I'm not prepared for," Gajeel snorted.

Either that, or suicidal, Lucy though, winkling her nose. Carefully, but not too slow, she walked downstairs, her mind still bouncing all over what she accidentally managed to overheard. It was to be expected, for a strong guild like fairy Tail to kept track of dangers somehow, but this...

This was pretty damn shady. It also reminded her about people her father sometimes was talking too, always behind the closed doors, always warning her to not even try and walk out of her room while they were around.

Shaking her head, Lucy walked towards the Quest Board and started looking for the one she was interested in.

Only for Gajeel to snatch it first with a smirk on his face. She gasped, totally startled by his sudden appearance and afraid that he followed her and knew that she was listening at the doors. But no, that wasn't the case, because if it was, she would be definitely dragged back upstairs to have a very serious talk with the Master. No, Gajeel seemed to be completely oblivious. He was just his usual assholish self. Who just took a mission that was pretty much about him being in the same room as bunch of poor, innocent children who just wanted to learn something about magic.

And that's how she ended up nested up on one of the tree branches outside of the small magical school, spying on the spy.

It was odd that he hadn't noticed her. On the other hand, someone really paid Elfman for product placement with that stinky thing and he was walking with the bottle of perfume everywhere, pumping out more and more of that nasty stuff. Dragon Slayer or no, at this point no one could smell anything but the manly perfume. and it definitely stuck to his clothes too, since he was in the building while Elfman was going mad with the spraying.

After a few nervous minutes, Lucy wiggled a bit, to find herself the most comfortable position. It wasn't that hard. the branches were wide and quite warm from the sun, the weather was nice and the subtle wind and shadows of the many, many leaves kept her from getting her skin burned. She felt somewhat like a very lazy cat in its favorite napping spot.

The class was pretty spacious for a group so small. There wasn't even ten kids, but it actually made some sense. Magic could be pretty dangerous, so filling the classroom with inexperienced but adventurous children would be a very bad idea.

Lucy didn't know what exactly she expected of Gajeel, but it probably looked like a bunch of scared kids in the corner and Gajeel laughing his ass off on the opposite side, towering over the poor brats and scaring the piss out of them.

The entire group sitting in a circle on the floor, each one with the cup of something, slowly warming the fluid with use of magic, wasn't what she expected at all. While Lucy stared, Gajeel was explaining that since a lot of stuff tasted like a crap - well, one couldn't have everything, the poor children were learning many new words - when it was cold, it was important to learn how to re-heat food.

Considering the fact that kids were actually excited, he probably gave them some kind of sweet drink to work on, completely not carrying how other adults would have to deal with kids high on sugar for the rest of day.

"Just breathe deeply and think about how warm you want it to be," Gajeel was saying. "Magic is all about wanting stuff - you need something hard enough, you make that happen."

That was not how you were supposed to explain magic. Magic was all about complicated theory and diagrams and long, long hours of memorizing how meditation was supposed to looks like before finally sitting down and trying to repeat the steps that someone written down ages ago.

Gajeel pretty much threw everything out of the window leaving only a few scraps, bastardized these heavily and somehow make the whole thing works. Kids definitely were loving it. Not only something that not involved reading and being bored out of their mind, but something that was actually useful...

Lucy almost wanted to try it on her own. Gajeel was very good at dumbing stuff down and making it look all easy.

Where even he picked up a trick like that? It was about heat, so it had to be connected to the fire magic somehow. A Mage usually was sticking only to one branch, since trying to go more than one way usually was a good way for only one thing - being mediocre at everything.

Gajeel definitely wasn't mediocre at all. More like goddamn terrifying.

Lucy patiently waited for the lesson to end and jumped down from her tree only after Gajeel walked out of the classroom. Getting busted stalking him would be bad. Not to mention, all the question she would have to answer if she was caught!

The mere thought made Lucy shudder.

"...wasn't I supposed to find myself a job?" she muttered, then looked at the sky. Grimacing at the sight of already pinkish surface, Lucy lowered her head.

"Oh well," she muttered with a shrug. "I'm going to worry about that tomorrow. A bath sounds nice."

A bath with a ridiculous amount of soap and scrubbing and then oils and balms and maybe, just maybe Lucy would start smelling like herself again.

Though that was going to make following the Iron Dragon Slayer much, much more difficult.

xxx

Lucy glared at the cup with instant soup in it. The last time she tried to learn other kind of magic than her own, it didn't went to well. Hell, Happy of all people - and cats - managed to outdo her!

On the other hand, if little kids who just started toying around magic could do it, Lucy should be able to at least get her soup lukewarm.

Learning how to make hot drinks without using fire would be soo useful during long missions! Lucy was depending on Natsu too much and he tended to go way overboard anyway. Eating stuff that was pretty much turned into charcoal wasn't fun.

Lucy licked her lips and wiggled a bit to sit more comfortably. Then, she grabbed the cup with both of her hands and closed her eyes.

Warm, Lucy through, furrowing her brow.

She wanted it warm, even a little bit of hot, with a ribbons of steam slowly rising from the surface, filling the air with the precious scent that promised a tasty, utterly unhealthy meal.

And that was exactly what happened.

Lucy opened her eyes and blinked, at first thinking that she just imagined the smell, but no. The cup was now filled with warm, salty soup and the noodles looked like they were ready too.

"Yay!" Lucy shouted with enthusiasm, almost tripping the cup over. "I did it! I made a-"

Lucy stopped dead in the mid sentence, because her brain just connected all the facts and came out with a rather disturbing conclusion.

"...I just made a hobo-ramen."

Cheap instant soup, a bit of cold water and a tiny amount of magic equals hobo-ramen. No need for a house, for cooking utensils or even a stove or campfire.

Food the ultimate hobo-style.

"...the hell I am even doing with my life?" Lucy moaned, hiding face in her hands.

Then she shook her head and grabbed her spoon. If her life continued to go the path is currently was, then she definitely would need the skill to make a hobo-ramen. Besides, it would be a shame for the food to go to waste since it was already done and all.

* * *

A/N: I regret nothing.  
Since I started reading this series, I was headcanoning Gajeel as someone with his sleeves full of survival tricks. I mean, he was raised in the wilderness just like Natsu, but he couldn't magic himself fire when he was cold or bake food in his bare hand and other stuff like that. He had to learn on his mistakes and develop lots and lots of tricks just to stay alive.

Also, spy!Gajeel is my favorite thing, so there's going to be a lot of it in here. Poor Lucy, she stepped right into it.


	2. Weirdo

**Chapter 2**  
 **Weirdo**

The mission at the school was not one of those kind where you were expected to show up once and then it was all done; the contract included week and a half of visiting the school and spending a considerate amount of time inside, spend preferably on teaching kids. Pulling out a show instead was also acceptable, because it was making kids excited about learning. Oddly enough, the Iron Dragon Slayer wasn't too fond of making a spectacle out of his visits, like showing off was beyond him.

Lucy climbed up her tree every single day out of pure curiosity. Gajeel still had no chance of sniffing her out, since Elfman was still going at it with his perfumes - the guy actually got banned from few places in the city already - so both Redfox and Lucy smelled like that blasted thing.

Lucy herself decided to swallow her pride and took a job at the restaurant that filled her afternoons and evenings and helped at the Guild with early morning cleaning. Her finances were poor, but she could scrap enough to pay that blasted rent. And still had enough time to stalk Gajeel during schooltime.

After the first shock which followed heating her soup - seriously, what kind of life you needed to lead to pick up that skill? - Lucy decided it would be worth it to observe what else Redfox decided to show the kids.

It was all pretty easy, useful stuff.

Charming a pine needle - or any leaf, the kids decided to test all they could put their hands on - to point north while in a puddle of water or in a bowl.

Repairing a broken shoelace by charming the torn parts back together - which gave him an excuse to show the kids how to make a funny looking knots and how to make and use a firing bow.

Then there were small illusion tricks to hide - seriously? - pimples which made the four girls that attended the class squeal with delight. and then follow Gajeel like a bunch of puppies and demand tips on hair or asking him about piercing and how much it hurt. His confusion was sort of adorable.

Lucy doubted that he cared about how his skin looked like, but a small illusions like that could hide a lot of other things. She didn't want to think what reason he needed that skill for, but tried to repeat it at home anyway. It would be neat, to always look good on a mission, even if she felt like a crap.

It took Lucy much more time than the hobo-ramen trick and she still wasn't too sure about the effects. Apparently whatever it was about charming how one looked like, that branch of magic really didn't agree with Lucy's skills. Quite a shame, because magicking yourself a make-up in a matter of second would be the best thing in the world.

Besides developing a habit of sitting on the trees – and getting bolder and bolder with that, since Lucy started bringing her lunch up there, to have something to munch on during the daily stalking session, not much have changed.

Her hopes that after almost two weeks Natsu would finally be back in form, didn't resulted in anything but disappointment. The Fire Dragon Slayer was still mostly out of it. To the point that Happy was now dealing with their finances. It resulted in them pretty much eating only fish - and sometimes something else, if Mira managed to snatch Natsu at the guild hall. Because of all these fishes, the two of them started reeks like they crawled out of a fishing boat themselves. Seeing that - or rather smelling it - Erza quickly grabbed Gray and ran out of the Guildhall, stopping only to pick up the nearest mission request. Juvia, naturally, cheerfully followed them, murmuring her usual nonsense about love rivals. Lucy couldn't join that merry group on their rather random adventure, since she still had two days of her current job to finish, so all what was left for her was to stay put where she was.

Two days later, the school mission was back on the board - same as the helping at the restaurant, it was a regular one. Apparently having a mage from a popular guild showing up once in awhile added to their prestige, so hiring someone who called for ridiculously high amount of money compared to a mundane man was more than worth it.

Lucy still wanted that job. While she was sure that she couldn't be possibly as interesting as Gajeel was - she wasn't cursing a lot, so she had none of his charm - she still could teach them a bit about stars. Those could help find your way home just as well as a pine needle in a puddle, but didn't require anything but night. Besides, celestial magic was so rare! And silver spirits could make amazing friends for children, slowly but surely helping them better control their magic and grow their reserves.

Gajeel once again snatched exactly that job right at the moment when she was about to pick the poster up.

"Hey!" Lucy protested. "I wanted that job!"

"Tough luck!" Redfox smirked nastily and turned on his heel, walking away.

"Bastard!" Lucy grunted. Was he waiting for her, or something? Was he finding making her angry funny? Because him showing up just in that exact moment when Lucy was about to raise her hand was more than just a bit suspicious.

Not that Lucy could do anything about that. Challenging someone like Gajeel over a job would be just a silly thing to do. She also highly doubted that asking him to give it back would lead to anything at all. He seemed to enjoy teaching and the kids definitely had fun when he was around. She wasn't going to rob them of that.

It seemed that the restaurant it was all for Lucy, once again. A steady source of outcome, but it wasn't what she was writing herself for when she decided to study magic. With a sigh, she reached out and picked her request. Then, after turning away from the board, she noticed something.

Lucy wasn't the only one giving Redfox a sour eye, which wasn't making sense. People were poking fun at each other at all time when it came to picking requests from the board. They sometimes even fought over it. Well, they were still pissed off at him, that she could understood, but singling anyone out like that wouldn't lead to anything good.

With a frown, Lucy observed Jet and Droy who stood up and quietly walked out of the building, with Levy following them with an odd expression on her face.

They weren't planning to do anything stupid, right? Like challenging the Dragon Slayer to a fight, or something like that.

Lucy decided to follow them. In the worst case scenario she would call Virgo and snatch someone - she wasn't sure who - underground and then talk people out of being dumb. Because seriously, they belonged to the same Guild now. Even if they didn't like each other, they should at least try to not get all stabby and nasty to each other.

Following Gajeel was a bit more difficult this time, since Elfman was finally done with the product-placement - and Mira banned him from taking any mission like that ever again - so Lucy wasn't smelling like some random dude anymore.

On the other hand, he seemed to pick the same path she did when she was walking from the Guild to the restaurant, so her smell was probably lingering somewhere around the place anyway. So it wasn't that strange that she was walking this way today, right?

She found the group when they were already at it, so Lucy hid behind the corner, biting her lip. This was already ugly and was probably going to turn uglier and now she had to decide what to do. Rescue the two idiots with the help of Virgo? Ask Aquarius to drown them all a bit, to make the whole group cool down?

The more Lucy observed the situation while trying to make her mind the more, it looked more like Jet and Droy were at it, while Gajeel was letting them do whatever. The Dragon Slayer forced his muscles to relax and whatever punches the two guys decided to throw at him seemed to be more slipping past him that actually hit and doing damage.

Still, he was just letting them...

"Idiots, all of them," Lucy muttered under his nose.

Punching people was not going to solve anything in this situation. And letting people punch you was not a good call either. Sooner than later both Jet and Droy were going to understood that Gajeel was going easy on them and that was going only to either piss them some more. Or it will make them feel like a crap. Both would cause the fragile relationship between the Dragon Slayer and the rest of the guild to take turn to worse.

Lucy was about to get out of her hidey-hole and order them to stop this madness when Laxus showed up and all went to hell. Thunder roared, lightning crashed through the air and the whole group almost got toasted.

Lucy couldn't hear what they were saying, but the way they moved was enough to guess what was going on. The lightning mage was openly offensive – definitely looking for a fight – while Gajeel tensed noticeably, fully expecting the fight.

At least that made Jet to finally open his eyes. He tried to defend Gajeel from the suddenly crazy guild mate. He was speaking quickly and waving his hands and actually trying to get in between Laxus and other people.

Lexus didn't took that well, like something just snapped inside him. Another lightning charge filled the air, heading right where Levy was hiding. the bastard knew where she was and didn't even seem to care!  
Lucy gasped and reached for her keys, painfully aware that whatever she was going to do, it was already too late. Summoning a spirit took only a little time, but compared to the speed of vicious chain of light cracking menacingly with electricity, it was forever.

Whatever and however Redfox managed to pull that one off, he was right in front of Levy before the hit connected with her and turned his forearm into a shield of sorts.

Lucy shuddered, almost dropping her keychain. It was a lightning, so ow. And Gajeel was made of metal so, uh, double ow!

After that Laxus finally decided that he was done and walked away.

Redfox for some crazy reason decided that heading towards the school was as good idea as ever and he proceed to do so, even if he clearly felt the results of Laxus' attack, leaving a shell-shocked team Shadow Gear behind as if he hadn't even noticed them in the first place.

"What's up with guys and acting all cool?" Lucy hissed. Gajeel definitely didn't look like anything you should let anywhere near school. Or any place else, excluding maybe a hospital. Walking, he managed to pull, but it looked like each step was an act of pure strength of will than anything else.

Lucy followed, mentally ready to pick the guy up and wrestle him someplace safe and more private than the middle of the street he was walking on. Fairy Tail was supposed to be all cool. Lying on the street all beaten up was not cool at all.

"Why the fuck you're following me?" Gajeel suddenly stopped dead and barked.

" I'm waiting for you to drop face-first on the ground. Then I'm going to rob you, duh." Lucy rolled her eyes. "Paranoid much?"

"You fairies are a bunch of madmen," he shot back immediately.

At least now Lucy knew that the lightning hasn't fried his brain. Which was good. Probably. What looked like a good idea a minute ago, now… wasn't. The Iron Dragon Slayer was huge, strong and currently pissed off.

"You fit in rather well," Lucy said. "Though really, the hell was that?"

"What?"

"The stuff with Jet and Droy."

"Not your business," he shrugged.

...how exactly Juvia decided that this guy was her friend? A few minutes in a conversation that was not involving knives and Lucy wasn't sure if she wanted tear out his hair or her own.

"It's mine now," she said with a shrug. "You looks like hell. No way they are letting you into that school."

He furrowed his brow.

"The hell you're talking about?"

"You snatched that request right when I was about to pick it up. Twice," Lucy rolled her eyes. "So stop being so goddamn suspicious already, it's not like I'm going to drag you into some dark corner and have my way with you."

His eyes widened comically.

Innuendo, always on her side. Seemed to work just fine on oh so very scary Iron Dragon Slayer.

"There's at least another half an hour before you have to be in that school," Lucy sighed. "So come with me, well going to make you somewhat presentable again."

"...and why do you know when I'm starting my job?"

"Because I wanted it?" Lucy rolled her eyes. "Seriously, I read that request at least twice and my memory is not that bad."

She wasn't lying. Since Natsu pulled on her that one request with the book and that nasty pervert, Lucy developed a habit of reading everything there was to read on the poster. And she had to know when to show at the school in the first place.

"Whatever," Gajeel said.

So, he actually agreed and accepted her help. What a surprise. Naturally, he knew pretty well where she was living - it would be a surprise if he didn't. After all, it was the guy who managed to find her with ease, following her through the entire city like it was nothing.

Gajeel definitely looked odd nested on her fluffy, bright sofa, among the delicate window curtains, cute knick-knacks and pink pillows. He was just so dark and gloomy it was plain hilarious. Lucy decided she needed some sort of a prize for not laughing her butt of the first moment she looked at him and then tossed the man her hairbrush.

"You want hair conditioner too?" she shouted from the bathroom, to hunt down her first aid kit.

"No way in hell!" he immediately answered. "The stench is going to stick forever! I'm done with that shit!"

"Rriight," Lucy muttered. If she barely could stand these crappy perfume, she had no idea how someone with a sense of smell as strong as Gajeel seemed to have managed to survive.

Lucy honestly tried to help with cleaning up the scratches and small burns, but he just took everything out of her hands and dealt with it on his own.

That was some impressive shit to behold, he never once missed and had no way of seeing what he was doing while he was taking care of his face.

"Why did you pick that request anyway?" Lucy mused, observing him. She barely could tell that a few moments ago he was in that fight. Fight-like thing. Whatever it was.

"Why not?"

"You don't strike me as a guy who like to deal with little kids," she said with a small shrug. She knew for the fact that he was awesome with brats as long as you didn't mind them picking up a bunch of interesting words.

Instead of answering her, Gajeel just shrugged.

"I'm going now," he said.

Lucy raised an eyebrow, but decided to not point out that she deserved some sort of a thank you for helping him out. She would pry something out of him later.

* * *

A/N: Oh, look, they talked to each other!  
And even managed to communicate with each other (somewhat), though Lucy is not doing too well when it comes to translating Gajeel into human speech. Meanwhile Gajeel is just weirded out by the situation. And he apparently hates hair-care products.  
(I was like, supposed to sit on this chapter for awhile, but now I'm just what the hell, gonna publish it at some point, why not now?)


	3. Sneaky

**Chapter 3**  
 **Sneaky**

The day of the Magnolia Harvest Festival, everything went to hell. Or even before it started.

Everyone was having fun together while getting ready for the Festival and Lucy had work. The girls went on a shopping spree to have new, cute outfits just for the Festival and Lucy had work.

Heck, it was day of the Festival and Lucy was cleaning table after table with a rag and hating her life choices very much. Everyone had fun and she was stuck working.

The fact that the restaurant was pretty much deserted at this hour wasn't helping either. For all Lucy knew, the food-stands, table with sweets and random stacks and little shops with knick-knacks, t-shirts and jewelry - and many, many else - were opened pretty early. Both her guild mates and civilians not connected to the Guild whatsoever used the chance to sell whatever goods they managed to produce to it's fullest.

Meanwhile, Lucy was at work, desperately trying to find herself something, anything to do, just to not die of pure boredom. The tables were already shining, the chairs she set in perfectly hours ago. The flowers were watered down, the floor was moped and Lucy started to seriously considering washing the clean dishes.

"Oh my, oh my!" The owner walked into the room, looking around. She was an aged woman of rather chubby posture, fashioning a flowery dress and wore her hair in short, modern manner.

"You definitely outdid yourself today, my dear!"

The owner was actually one of the few things Lucy liked about this job. Being a waitress at a place which belonged to that old guy who once was a member of the Council was a pain, which those ridiculous outfits and all. Here the dresses of the waitress were actually pretty nice and the owner was a pretty cool person too. Through still, waitressing when one was a mage and expected to live through one adventure after another was underwhelming.

"It's not like I had anything else to do," Lucy left out a loud sigh.

"I hear you," the woman nodded. "There are so many rare things available in the city no one cares for plain ol' restaurants!"

Lucy eyed her employer. She felt kind of bad with making puppy eyes and begging with everything but words to be let out of here - she was paid for working at the restaurant, after all - but she truly had nothing to do other than dying out of boredom.

The woman clearly knew what was on Lucy's mind. She set her hands on hips and shook her head.

"Alright," she said with a heavy sigh. "It's not making any sense to keeping you holed up here, when you can have fun with your friends."

"Really!" Lucy gasped, instantly straightening up. Then she blushed. the reaction was so over the top, she really was embarrassed of herself. After living through so many savoir vivre lessons at home it was still astonishing how she was able to just forget everything in moments like that.

"Really," the woman nodded. "But I want to see you here tomorrow, ready to work," she warned. "So don't drink too much!"

"Yes, Ma'am!" Lucy saluted and almost dashed out of the restaurant.

Luckily, she remembered that she was still wearing the uniform before she reached the doors. Blushing even harder, with a sheepish grin on her face, Lucy turned around and jogged towards the backroom of the restaurant.

"Sorry!"

The only answer was a chuckle.

Well, at least someone was having a good day...

Dressing up in a record time, Lucy couldn't help herself, but giggled enthusiastically. She was going to miss the whole thing with trying out for the beauty contest, but she still could have a lot of fun. And her finances were good enough to spend a little something here and there.

Then Lucy walked out of the restaurant and looked at the skies. Which prove that it was going to be a bad day after all.

Whatever the spheres floating in the air over the whole city of Magnolia, they sure looked quite menacing. The magic coming from them was giving a bad vibe as far as Lucy could tell.

She knew for sure nothing like that was in the plans of the Festival and while the Master was pretty lenient towards the members of his guild, the main person behind the planning was Erza. And she wasn't lenient in the slightest.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Lucy murmured, fingering the keychain on her hip.

She decided that having a closer look on the mysterious spheres was a good idea and furrowed her brow.

She could head back towards her apartment. With a little bit of sneaking around, she could climb all the way to the roof and try to have a look from there. The other option was heading towards the guild and asking the other members of the Fairy Tail what was up with these things.

"Now I sorta want a telescope..." Lucy groaned.

A telescope was something she wanted to owe, but the prices were terrifying enough for her to not even hope to have enough to make that purchase any time soon. Still it would be nice to observe the stars closer that just by staring at the night sky.

"What do you need a telescope for?" A sudden voice just behind her, rough as if someone was rubbing one stone against another, startled Lucy enough to make her jump.

"What the hell?!" she shouted, turning around. "Didn't mother taught you to not come at people like that?!"

"Never had one," Gajeel said with a shrug.

"Uh..." Lucy put hand over her mouth, feeling embarrassed for gods only knew which time this day. Seriously, she should watch her mouth some more because that last one was quite brutal. At least the Iron Dragon Slayer didn't seemed to be too sore about the fact. More like amused by her reaction.

"What are you doing here anyway?" she asked, pulling herself together.

"Had work, just like you did."

"The school was open today?" Lucy blinked. Then the realization came. "And hey, why do you know that I have a work in the first place?"

"You smell like that cleaning stuff," he answered.

Okay, that made sense. If the guy was able to find her hidden in the city using only his nose, then he sure as hell could tell that she spend her morning scrubbing and washing things. Especially since she didn't put her hand cream on yet.

"So... we're both pretty late, right?" she tried to start a conversation. It sounded a bit awkwardly, but hell, he wasn't exactly the people person either. "Do you know what is that?"

She gestured towards the hovering spheres.

"Those are trouble," he said. Then furrowed his brow, looking at her. "You don't know?"

"Trouble?" Lucy blinked.

"You probably were out of range," Gajeel said with a shrug.

That did explain exactly nothing and Lucy somewhat wanted to strangle the Iron Dragon Slayer. What range? Why was she supposed to know that something was going on? Why he was aware that something was up, while she was not?

So many questions, so little time, so Lucy decided to stick to the most basic ones.

"Can you tell me what is going on?"

"Long story short: Sparky in the coat went crazy and said that he's either going to be the Guild Master or he's going to blow up this joint."

"...blow up?" Lucy's brow twitched nervously. "You're just fucking with me now, right?"

"Nope," he answered, brushing his hair aside. "Those spheres are lacrima's charged with his magic. The thing had to be planned, you can't fill so many in few minutes..."

"So why people are not doing anything?" Lucy bit her lip. "I mean, I know that he's strong at all, but with Erza and all the other people...!"

"As I said, the thing was planned," Gajeel said. Then, he explained everything about the contestants in the beauty show were turned into stone, how freed filled the whole city with traps and how Laxus forced the guild mates to fight against each other.

"We... D-don't have to fight now, right?" Lucy asked with a shudder.

"Nah. Don't wanna step into any traps, I'm just here to drop the bastard who set the whole thing up."

"...drop?" she asked, feeling cold and a little bit sweaty. Gajeel was still scary and speaking of things like that wasn't making him any less disturbing. Quite the opposite.

"Listen, Cosplayer" he said, a tone of annoyance now noticeable in his voice. "We can either stand there and discuss my life or we can go on a little hunt and deal with this mess before shit really hits the fan."

"Right," Lucy nodded. "Sorry."

He was right, there were thing with much higher priority than satisfying her own curiosity.

"You said that there are traps all over the city. Do you know how to tell where these are? Or how to disarm them?"

"Dunno how to deal with them, it's that written magic thingamajig," he said. "But I can sniff where they are."

"...eh?"

"They guy who was setting them up, he spend some time at each spot while making that stuff."

"Oh!" Lucy clapped her hands together. The scent of the mage was probably still there, making it pretty easy for the Dragon Slayer to follow him around or avoid all those carefully plotted traps. "And how you're going to find that mage? Without stepping into none of his traps?"

"Sparky wants everyone in the city, doing Battle Royale for whatever fucked up reason he got for this mess," Gajeel snickered. "I'm simply going to act like I'm leaving the city. Dude should try to jump me."

That was... actually a surprisingly good idea. Even if it was knowingly walking into a trap and then waiting for a sneak attack. The Iron Dragon Slayer, Lucy decided, was weird. He was acting like a grunt with brain located in his fists, so Lucy was fully expecting him to act like more brutal version of Natsu. Or something like that. However, Lucy was observing him for long enough to know that was just a front, a mask he put on to hide as many cards up his sleeves as humanly possible.

While she couldn't quite understand why, she knew that right now Gajeel was her only way around the city that would safely lead her away from all the traps. She would really hate being forced to hurt anyone in the Guild. They were family.

"I'm going with you," she decided.

"And who says so?" Gajeel raised an eyebrow.

"You're setting up a trap, right?" she asked, forcing her mouth to bend into a sneaky smile. "Every trap needs a bait."

That was going to be such a bad day.

xxx

If Lucy had to pick one word to describe her current situation, it would be definitely something like "surreal" or "disturbing".

People of Magnolia City seemed to be blind to what was going on around them. How else one was to explain why they were occupied by their usual business, while the Fairy Tail guild was about to destroy itself, with its members fighting all around the city? The fact that no one was even trying to do anything, to ask them what was going on... it hurt.

Lucy was aware that most of people didn't know much about magic - heck, she herself felt like a novice and she spend most of her life using magic - so they had no way of telling what was going on, but still... couldn't they notice that there was something wrong?

She eyed Gajeel. Lucy had no clue what she was looking for, but it definitely wasn't that weird expression between being blank and slightly annoyed. Did he cared at all? Not like he had a good reason to do so. After all not that long ago he got literally punched in the face when he tried to act friendly with other guild members. Friendlier.

Ugh.

Lucy grimaced. Gajeel was just so difficult to read and the natural curve of his lips wasn't helping. It was going downwards and it made him looked constantly pissed instead of... whatever he was feeling at the moment.

If she wasn't staring at Gajeels face, she would have probably missed it. A slight twitch of a muscle in the corner of his eye. Did he noticed something? Then why he was keeping his mouth shut? They were working together to solve this mess, he should be doing something!

Lucy huffed in annoyance and decided that she was done with waiting for him to take the initiative.

"We should try find Evergreen first," she said. "I mean, with her down the girl that were turned into stone should return to normal, right?"

"Don't care," Gajeel grunted.

"What do you mean, you don't care?" Lucy raised her voice. "Juvia is among them! She's your friend!"

"Well, being a bit more solid is definitely a new thing for her," he smirked. "I would hate to rob her of that experience."

Lucy gasped.

"That was a terrible thing to say!"

"Told you before," he just shrugged. "I don't care."

Lucy closed her hands into fists, hard enough for knuckles to turn while. Trying to take a deep breath, exhale and then another breath wasn't working all that well for her either. All she could do to keep herself from punching him was standing there and shaking.

"What now?" Gajeel looked at her over his shoulder. His eyes seemed to be so much more red than a few moments before and the odd shape of his iris wasn't making him look human at all. Natsu was a Dragon Slayer too and Lucy looked into his eyes so many times, but his stare never was as disturbing.

"You don't like something you see, little girl?"

Lucy didn't turn away, because it would be like admitting defeat.

"I'm going to save my friends," she stated. "With or without you."

"Whatever," Gajeel grunted. then he broke the eye contact and continued to walk forward through the city, not waiting for her.

There were people walking on the sidewalks, merchants and shopkeepers filled the air with noise and quarrel, but at the same time it was like they were the only real people in the otherwise empty city.

Lucy swallowed hard and turned on her heels, then rushed forward. She didn't want to run, because running in a situation like that would be just wrong and it would make it looks like they've just broke up or something and there definitely wasn't anything to be broken in the first place.

She shook her head, because it was no time for her mind to wander in odd directions either. Lucy was in hurry and she couldn't waste any more precious seconds. Her friends needed help.

She turned at the first fork in the road and stopped. She took a deep breath, brushing the keychain with her fingers and waited.

It didn't take that much time. There was a sudden light coming from the direction they were heading just a few minutes before and a swooshing noise and Lucy couldn't help herself, but smirk.

"Open! Gate of the Virgin! Virgo!" she said quickly, trying to keep her voice as quiet as possible, while twisting the key in the air.

"Princess?" the Spirit looked at her, pink hard done as perfectly as always and the maid uniform looked like it was freshly ironed.

"There's a fight going on not far from here," Lucy said quickly. "I want you do dig up a tunnel to there, but don't finish it!"

"Of course," Virgo bowed. "anything else?"

"Make it wide enough for Taurus to move freely," Lucy said, a smirk growing on her face. "and that would be it."

"I'm on it, princess."

Lucy furrowed her brow, trying to fish out the sounds of fighting. As soon as Virgo was finished, Lucy let her go away, because conserving her energy for a real fight was an important thing. Besides, Taurus needed a lot of fuel to just hand out on this plane and she really needed him. She had a Dragon Slayer to save.

xxx

It was supposed to be a much more epic entrance, however the high heels once again got in Lucy's way. She tripped and almost feel on her face, but somehow managed to regain her balance.

"My," Freed raised one elegant eyebrow at her awkward struggles. "It appears another opponent entered the battle."

"Uh, yeah!" Lucy straightened up, trying to look at least somewhat heroic. "So what?"

"Well, it wouldn't be fair if I didn't explain the rules, right?" he asked, smiling coldly.

'Rules?" Lucy asked, making a careful step to the right, so she could see the mage behind green-haired menace in front of her.

The Dragon Slayer was still in one piece and looking somewhat pissed, so everything was well. If not counting that weirdo in a coat between them.

"The rule of this fight is," Freed continued, his voice almost dripping with satisfaction. "No destructive magic is allowed."

"Oh," Lucy said. That explained thing or two. Like, why the street and the building around were still existing.

"You see, dragon Slayers tend to be not too careful and we would hate to turn this whole city in the sea of ruins before the right time," Freed continued. "You seem to be at the disadvantage too, miss Hearfillia. As far as I understand, your spirits tend to deal a lot of damage and we just can't have that here..."

He smirked and it was a nasty expression.

Behind Freed Gajeel carefully took one step back, then another, muscles tense and eyes burning red.

"What?" Freed chuckled. "You two want to work together and gain something by flanking me? How amusing!"

"And what's so amusing in that?" Lucy grunted.

"My, because my magic does not bring destruction of course!" he said, his grin growing even wider. "Well, not a physical one..."

Freed raised his hand, but before he managed to finish the gesture, Lucy opened her mouth.

"Now, Taurus!"

The ground right behind Freed exploded, sending dust and debris everywhere, stones click-clacking on the ground, crashing into walls around them.

Taurus roared, accompanied by a shriek of breaking glass in one of the windows nearby and raised his axe.

Before Freed managed to turn around, the weapon fell down, smacking him in the side of the head with the blunt side of the blade. The force behind was enough to throw him into the brick wall of nearest building with a loud thud. He traveled all the way to the ground, slowly sliding off the wall, like he suddenly turned into a rag-doll.

Suddenly, the streets and walls around them - and probably around the city - started to shine with a greenish light of complicated runes, before the letters, one after another, perished.

"Mooouission accomplished!" Taurus proudly announced.

"Good job!" Lucy grinned.

"Huh. You're big," Gajeel commented.

He was still standing in the same place, though his back was now bend backwards, so he could look at the huge Celestial Spirit.

"How did you know he's underground anyway?" Lucy asked. She was forced to awkwardly bend to the side so she could see the Dragon Slayer behind the - indeed quite big - Celestial Spirit.

"He smells like ozone," Gajeel explained. "And a cow."

"Now, that wasn't very nice!" Taurus pouted at him.

"Don't care."

"Of course you don't, you're a prick," Lucy rolled her eyes. "Taurus, could you please return to the Spirit World now?"

"Muooff course!" The huge bull saluted with his axe and then disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Didn't he say that destructive magic was not possible?" Gajeel asked, looking around the rubble and wreckage that was around them.

"That wasn't magic, that was an axe to the face," Lucy smirked.

"True," Gajeel nodded.

"By the way... is he uh...?" she nervously looked at Freed.

"Nah, still alive," Gajeel said, kneeling by the unconscious man. "I'm pretty sure that his shoulder and collarbone are busted, but he never hit the wall with his head..."

Lucy blinked. "You seem to know a lot about those things!"

"Well, no contrary to what some people may say about me, I never was a dark wizard," he said, his red eyes burning holes into her, before he turned his attention back to Freed.

Lucy blushed. Well, that was awkward. Though at the same time, the explanation made a lot of sense - if someone was using brute force while fighting, that someone also needed to know how to not kill the opponent with said power.

She was about to say that she was sorry for asking stupid questions like that, because she was supposed to trust her guild mates, but the words died in her throat before she managed to voice them.

"The hell are you doing?!"

That was an important question, since Gajeel picked up still unconscious Freed.

"Moving him?" he answered.

"...and why you are doing that?"

"Have you even seen a guy with a nasty concussion?"

She didn't. But that was supposed to not be too great when it came to thinking and other things, since well, it was a result of a pretty hard hit to the head.

Gajeel looked around for a short moment, with Freed hanging under his arm like a sack of potatoes. then he headed straight towards the dead end, where nothing but a bunch of big, metal containers stood.

"...you are going to make a joke about how trash should know it's place or something?" Lucy asked, her eyes twitching slightly.

Gajeel didn't seem to care much. He just dumped the unconscious wizard inside, closed the container and then used his magic to seal it.

"Nah," he finally said. "I just don't want him wandering around. Doubt that he would be able to pick up where he left his stuff, but no point in risking a nasty surprise."

"...makes sense."

Though more because there was a river nearby. Lucy had no idea how well a person could move while having a concussion, but if it was at least partially as wobbly as Natsu was during his sickness, then that river was a serious danger. And Gajeel was making sure that the dumb follower of Laxus was safe while they were going to look for his boss.

"By the way, nice entrance, Princess," Gajeel smirked at her. "Didn't know you can lie that well."

"My, thank you," Lucy couldn't help herself, she just had to bow slightly. "Though you are wrong. I wasn't lying at all."

"Oh?" he tilted his head and the wild mane of black hair followed the movement like a wave.

"I do think that the first one we should go after is Evergreen. And I am going to save my friends."

"What about this asshole?" Gajeel gestured towards the trashcan with his thumb.

"Oh, he went after us, not the other way around," Lucy shrugged.

He blinked, staring at her for a short moment.

"Duh," he said afterwards.

Suddenly, it was all awkward again, with them standing in front of each other in silence, like two weirdly placed statues.

"Eh, at least we work together pretty well!" she grinned.

"You're not afraid," he stated all of sudden.

"Huh?" Lucy blinked. "Where that came from?"

"Your pals all act like they're torn between pissing their pants and kicking me in the gut," he stated.

Huh. Well, the whole mess with Phantom Lord was just one terrible... not misunderstanding. More like a betrayal and turning Gajeel and Juvia and all the others into tools by Master Jose. And a whole lot more other issues Lucy couldn't quite put her fingers on. But what she could put her finger on...

She smiled, looking him right in the face and then raised her marked hand. She grabbed his left shoulder, where the twin guild mark was. Her fingers looked small and pale against his skin, not even fully covering the black guildmark. That wasn't important at all. No matter how big and scary Gajeel was, he was still warm and breathing and tense because of the sudden touch. Human.

"As long as we both have it," Lucy said, still smiling. "As long as we belong to the same Guild, I have nothing to be afraid of."

Gajeel looked. First at her, then his blazing red gaze moved towards her hand and the pink mark on it. After that, he took one stiff step away, so the contact was broken. Turning on his heel he proceed to moving forward.

"Aren't we supposed to look for the whatsherface?" he grunted.

Lucy somehow managed to swallow her laughter and covered her mouth with hand, just to be sure and jogged after Gajeel.

Someone was shy.

* * *

A/N: Okay, this is pretty much the last chunk I have prewritten - I was waaay behind during the NaNoWriMo this year, so I pretty much wrote it all in one sitting _^_'  
(Gajeel is so very comfy for me to write about, I have a ridiculous amount of headcanons about him XD)

Anyhow, we learned many thing here!  
Gajeel is pretty damn bad at plot dumping (he, like, ignored everything but the absolute necessary), but at the same time he knows a lot of stuff.  
Lucy and Gajeel are making a great team, which made the whole fight to be a rather underwhelming experience. They're fairy (pun intended) smart, so letting the opponent show all his trick wasn't a thing. Sorry!

I'm trying very hard to stick to only one POV in this story - I tend to jump around like crazy bunny, because I like to have a very lively and constantly changing background, so not poking that one is quite a challenge for me.  
Lucy is not helping, she's got her own opinions about stuff, so she's misinterpreting this or that.

Thanks for the reviews and other forms of attention, I'm glad we can have fun together! ^^


End file.
